The story has the ring of accuracy
on
911 Calls Linux
·
· Score: 1
I'm NOT an officer - but rather someone who has been around dispatchers a bit in my capacity as a volunteer for the cities' RACES group. (Amateur radio type.)
I was involved with my own city (Milpitas, CA) while they were building their new Emergency Operations Center (EOC) some years ago. The city contracted to a company to develop a custom CAD system (Computer Aided Dispatch) to run on a unix server (Sequent...) and used X terminals (NCD) as the workstation for the dispatchers.
I won't go on about how the custom CAD system never REALLY got implemented correctly - that is a different story.
But I WILL say that all of the issues the officer mentions in his story sound REAL familiar from a few years back. The system Milpitas installed was reliable - it just didn't have the functionality they needed.
Further - the entire CITY of Garden Grove is using Linux for it's server, email, etc. I don't recall if the police dept is using Linux for it's CAD operation, but do know that some of the police computing function is performed by linux from reading recent articles. So that makes TWO such stories.
Didn't find Display Dr any more capable than XF86Setup! In fact it looks more like a rip-off of XF86Setup (speaking of rip-offs..;-)
As for the "tulip" chip - yes - I figured that out. Haven't had time to dig into the driver to see if I could make it work yet. More interested in seeing X work I guess.
Oh - and as for Linux support from E machines. I just asked them about which video timings were correct in their manual(they have two different sets which conflict slightly). I got a kiss-off you wouldn't believe..well maybe the linux community WOULD believe it.. I thought we were suppossed to be "up and coming." Emachines hasn't figured that out yet!
It looks ALOT more like an old OLD Lear- Siegler ADM-3! The shapes are ALMOST identical. Even the colors are close. (well - both two tones one being blue)
If anything - maybe their patent should be invalidated because of prior use!
But since I actually HAVE one of these nice little boxes - and have seen IMacs up close and personal too -
IMHO - they are different enough in shape and "racing stripes" to not be a violation. Though in staring at it a little closer - If you turned your Imac on it's side you'd be about the shape of the EOne. So the orientation of the physical shape is about 90 degrees different. Who wants to use a computer on it's side?;-)
As for peripheral content - well - the EOne has a floppy;-)
Lastly - and this is for anyone thinking of putting Linux on this, then running KDE with the Mac theme. It doesn't. Linux loads just fine -but is un-aware of the newer 21145 Enet chip, and the video timings on the EOne seem to be beyond X's kin. I haven't found a "nice" video timing of ANY SORT yet. Even the VGA driver doesn't work?
I love all the political replies to this like "It's the zoning laws." Hey - there is a finite amount of land IN THE VALLEY - it IS a valley after all. There are now something like 8 to 10 MILLION people living here. You do the math.
As for the prices being high - so what's new? When I moved here in 1982 I had rent a room from a college room-mate for a year and save up the down for a house too. That's almost a time honored tradition around here.
The other fact is that the valley really has just two income levels..those in the high tech fields were the average salary is probably 70K to 80K for only 2 years of expeience and those in service situations where the average salary is more like 20K-40K.
I'm wondering if it might be time for the "community" to come up with the equivalent document for OSS projects.
Things like - In OSS it's acceptable to fork from an original project - but there are polite ways and rude ways to do this.
It also seems like it's getting to be time to come up with a "How to manage OSS projects 101" text book. There are several successful models and a few that have flopped that would make great case studies.
Just a couple thoughts that seemed relevant.
Re:haha NT is clearly faster then linux
on
EDA: Unix vs. NT
·
· Score: 2
Your first mistake is taking "benchmarks" at face value. Your second mistake is believing that this benchmark applies to the box running NT at your office cause I'll wager yours isn't a Quad-Xeon with 4 Enet controllers.
Go look at the c't magaizine review to get a clearer picture! Turns out there is a corner case with 4 Enet controllers that Linux has to improve on. This is a fairly rare setup, most machines are going to have 1 NIC - maybe 2....where there is a different result to the benchmark!
Next - in the EDA market that this article is talking about (which is where I live all day as a user) NT leaves alot to be desired as a platform. Some of this is just "it isn't what I'm used too" while other parts have to do with a lack of a good scripting environment.
Oddly - the scripting can be corrected by putting the MKS tool kit and perl on your machine...still EDA users are usually unix jocks - and we like having all the unix tools like awk and sed to deal with the differences between EDA tools.
There are some EDA related benchmarks published by ISD magazine (www.isd.com) that might be of interest to folks if you want to see how NT really faired!
About 5 years ago I joined a company that didn't have any TCP/IP access to their network. I could call up and use the line via seyon/minicom or whatever and have exactly one window to use.
Then TIA came along(produced by a commercial company.) TIA did SLIP on shell account. This worked on Netcom's SunOS boxes but didn't run on our sun boxes at work for some reason.
Next came Slirp - a GPL'd Slip adapter for shell accounts - just like TIA with all the same features.
People were begging for PPP functionality on TIA - they kept promising it...and were MONTHS late. The developer of Slirp began to consider it at which point he received a port of the Linux PPP code grafted onto his adapter. Walla - Slip OR PPP with source code.
Well - the folks that sold TIA wound up dieing due to the competition from a GPL'd piece of code that was BETTER and had more features that TIA did.
TIA was great for awhile, but SLIRP just did the job better, faster and with more features.
A goodly number of the stuff you mentioned, i.e. the mouse, GUI and perhaps even the work station probably are appropriately attributed to Xerox...and this wasn't on unix.
Maybe folks should stop worrying about the personalities involved and talk about the issues instead?
I'd also like to remind folks that when the Open Source trademark was applied for the community had just fought off the theft of the "Linux" trademark! I'd guess that when BP went after the Open Source trademark that was part of his thinking. Correct Bruce?
Now - do we need it?
The article that announced the denial of the trademark said that the community was hypocritical to apply for it since we were constantly gripping about others that hid their software behind the same laws! I'd challenge this arguement by stating that the Copyleft and it's ilk are doing exactly the same thing!?! The law provides a mechanism to create software that may be protected/distributed under the control of the creator....thus Copyleft and the myrid other license. The trademark system is just playing by the same game to protect the ability to KNOW the software is what you think it is...not some corporate marketing trick.
So - I believe the original announcement article was so much tripe, and that we DO need such protection. Heck, it's playing by the system that's in place.
Well - the Mandrake 6.0 release though slicker looking than the production from RH (mostly cause of nicely integrated KDE AND GNOME) still is as buggy as RH 6.0 if not more. I had stability problems that were horendous - like 1.5 day uptimes is all. This partially due to the 2.2.9 kernel and partially due to Mandrake or RH bugs(hard to separate those.)
I DO like Mandrake and find the 5.3 release stable as a rock. I think that 6.0 of either RH or Mandrake isn't ready for prime-time yet..there are LOTS of bugs in these things.
Well - I do believe under US law ( interesting since RH is a US company and Alan codes in England...) that even as a contractor - if you are paid for the work -it's the employer's unless stipulated otherwise in a prior agreement. (All this from a non-lawyer so take it with a large grain of salt.) I'd also guess that English law probably has similar constraints.
BUT since everything is GPL'd I think Alan's take is right on. It doesn't matter one iota.
While I think you're right that YAST is (c) SuSE - Don't forget that they've also constributed some major code in the form of X drivers for new cards - LOTS of em.
Further, one of the ONLY ways that a distribution can differentiate themselves from others is their Admin/Easy of installation.
But by defining it a language in an expressive manner - this brings the full force of the first amendment into the picture - it makes it a constitional arguement!
Another interesting situation is the suit Phil Karn brought to try an export a floppy containing source code that was already printed in a book on cryptography that is exportable. They turned that down, though they approved the books international export? Doh!
The bridge metaphor does apply! Consider folks writting code that has life-or-death implications. Things that come to mind are pace-makers, nuclear reaction control systems, etc.
It could also be argued that the "guild" already exists - it's called ACM.
I'm a practicing electronic engineer in the computer industry. I don't have a PE, and don't need one to pursue my career.
The poster states that passing a PE examine GUARANTEES that the design will be fail safe. This is demonstrably false. I can show you any number of structural designs that have failed, yet were designed by PE's. They didn't fail safe either, people died.
Passing the PE examine doesn't ensure that I am competent to do design of some nature. It shows that I am good at taking tests on material I only know fresh out of college.
For that matter, the PE license (and it's a license in my state...this varies from state to state) was only established as a "gate-keeper" mechanism to try to ensure some minimum level of competency. It doesn't really achieve that either. My basic complaint with the system is that they don't test engineers on the fields they are going to practice in... why does a computer design engineer need to have a structural engineers' understanding of statics or dynamics?
The bottom line is that this system operates mostly because it already is an established bureaucracy. I see no reason to extend this system to programmers as well!
To take a different tack - a professor of mine once defined those in the "professions" as people who have "dangerous knowledge." I think this is a good operating definition. Consider - would you want me to use a knife on you to take your appendix out - I'd be dangerous - I don't have the requisite training or experience to accomplish the task. So professionals are keepers of dangerous knowledge.
To extend this definition to the programmers' world - are there programs that require "dangerous knowledge." Well - there ARE programs operating in environments that are "life critical." There could be a case made to extend "professional licensing" to just these areas. Writting operating systems to handle my game playing requirements don't fit the requirement! Writting real-time OS's to control a nuclear reaction might!
Even then, I don't think this is needed or desirable because I don't think you can test for "minimum competency." I don't think this screening mechanism works.
Well - I was paraphrasing a report seen on ABC recently that basically said that teen-agers in particular think with a different part of their brains compared to adults. The BIG difference as to why they are typically more creative than adults,or perhaps the word un-inhibited might be more correct.
One of the other observations was that kids(and teenagers) don't consider the consequences of their actions - goes with thinking your imortal at that age I suspect. So I stand by what I say.
Now to why would I want to minimize my childs gaining experience. EXCUSE ME...I want to control the TYPE of experiences he has. That is my job, right and priviledge being his parent. End of discussion on that.
I want to make a few points about Katz's article. Some of you bemoaned the fact that the 10 year old had his computer taken away. That was an example of GOOD parenting. You may not agree with their reaction, but they have chosen to be pro-active about it. They got involved!
I have a 6 year old son myself and he doesn't have nintendo, doesn't play doom like games, nor watch violent movies. He is simply to young to understand that these are fantasy worlds. I don't want him de-sensitized to violence, I want him to abhore it! Further, it is MY decision, MY right, and MY responsibility to make these decisions for him.
Children - AND THIS INCLUDES TEENAGERS - don't comprehend the implications of their actions. It isn't part of their thinking process yet. This only comes with age/maturity. That being the case - THE PARENTS are responsible for watching out for their well-being.
Society in general has decided that it's the "Village's" responsibility to guarantee that kids are safe and brought up in a nuturing environment. BS! It's the PARENTS job.... no-one elses.
Also, all of you lament the fact that you are being persecuted. I will instantly grant you all the fact that schools today are overly bureaucratic, that the administrators are being judgemental and over-reacting. See my last paragraph as to why they behave this way! Parents have ceeded their responsibilities to the schools to bring up their kids to be good citizens. That is societal stupidy in the extreme!
We have to get back to the point where we take responsibilities for our actions, or those of our children...for they are both morally, physically, and legally un-able to exercise adult judgement in their actions.
To the older kids who had their internet access taken away. Well - your parents care about you! Respect and love them for that. Talk to them! Right now you think they are the dumbest people on the face of the earth and that NO-ONE could possibly know how you feel, or understand you. Consider that you just found out that there are lots of kids that feel as you do, and that your parents were kids once too. Seek out their advice...explain why you feel like you do to them. TALK!
First - sponsoring a rebuttal in the form of another benchmark will have to be left to the Distro guys making money...
Cause it costs money to put together such a test system, or purchase NT for that matter!
On the other hand - putting out a decent rebuttal in the form of accurate criticism such as ESR has done(I REALLY like his article) is perhaps the best way to point that Emporer Bill isn't wearing any clothes. The only remaining trick is to get that rebuttal circulated amongst the press widely. ESR has the credibility to get quoted in such places. Looks like a good combination, and the right path to me.
He's denying that applications like Office are complex, while browsers like Mozilla, IE5, KFM, etc are simple?
He's denying that Linux isn't good for much, except that more Internet servers are using it than any other choice.
He's denying that the bizaar model can't scale up to provide real and tested solutions, yet MS does it well? (Then why did Wordpad give me a BSOD the very first time I used NT just trying to read a floppy?)
Slashdot Mirror
I'm NOT an officer - but rather someone
who has been around dispatchers a bit
in my capacity as a volunteer for the
cities' RACES group. (Amateur radio type.)
I was involved with my own city (Milpitas, CA)
while they were building their new Emergency
Operations Center (EOC) some years ago. The
city contracted to a company to develop a
custom CAD system (Computer Aided Dispatch)
to run on a unix server (Sequent...) and
used X terminals (NCD) as the workstation
for the dispatchers.
I won't go on about how the custom CAD
system never REALLY got implemented
correctly - that is a different story.
But I WILL say that all of the issues
the officer mentions in his story
sound REAL familiar from a few years
back. The system Milpitas installed
was reliable - it just didn't have the
functionality they needed.
Further - the entire CITY of Garden
Grove is using Linux for it's server,
email, etc. I don't recall if the
police dept is using Linux for it's
CAD operation, but do know that some
of the police computing function is
performed by linux from reading recent
articles. So that makes TWO such
stories.
My two cents worth anyway.
Steve
Been there, tried that.
;-)
Didn't find Display Dr any more
capable than XF86Setup! In fact
it looks more like a rip-off
of XF86Setup (speaking of rip-offs..
As for the "tulip" chip - yes - I figured
that out. Haven't had time to dig into
the driver to see if I could make it
work yet. More interested in seeing
X work I guess.
Oh - and as for Linux support from
E machines. I just asked them about
which video timings were correct in
their manual(they have two different
sets which conflict slightly). I got
a kiss-off you wouldn't believe..well
maybe the linux community WOULD believe
it.. I thought we were suppossed to
be "up and coming." Emachines hasn't
figured that out yet!
Steve
It looks ALOT more like an old OLD
Lear- Siegler ADM-3! The shapes are
ALMOST identical. Even the colors
are close. (well - both two tones one
being blue)
If anything - maybe their patent
should be invalidated because of
prior use!
Steve
I'm not an expert on industrial patents -
;-)
;-)
But since I actually HAVE one of these
nice little boxes - and have seen IMacs
up close and personal too -
IMHO - they are different enough in
shape and "racing stripes" to not
be a violation. Though in staring at it
a little closer - If you turned your
Imac on it's side you'd be about the
shape of the EOne. So the orientation
of the physical shape is about 90 degrees
different. Who wants to use a computer
on it's side?
As for peripheral content - well - the
EOne has a floppy
Lastly - and this is for anyone thinking
of putting Linux on this, then running
KDE with the Mac theme. It doesn't. Linux
loads just fine -but is un-aware of the
newer 21145 Enet chip, and the video
timings on the EOne seem to be beyond
X's kin. I haven't found a "nice" video
timing of ANY SORT yet. Even the VGA
driver doesn't work?
Steve
I love all the political replies to this
like "It's the zoning laws." Hey - there is
a finite amount of land IN THE VALLEY - it
IS a valley after all. There are now
something like 8 to 10 MILLION people
living here. You do the math.
As for the prices being high - so what's
new? When I moved here in 1982 I had rent
a room from a college room-mate for
a year and save up the down for a house
too. That's almost a time honored
tradition around here.
The other fact is that the valley really
has just two income levels..those in the
high tech fields were the average salary
is probably 70K to 80K for only 2 years
of expeience and those in service situations
where the average salary is more like 20K-40K.
Those are the folks that have the real
problems.
Life in Silicon Valley....
I'm wondering if it might be time for the
"community" to come up with the equivalent
document for OSS projects.
Things like - In OSS it's acceptable to fork
from an original project - but there are
polite ways and rude ways to do this.
It also seems like it's getting to be time to
come up with a "How to manage OSS projects 101"
text book. There are several successful models
and a few that have flopped that would make
great case studies.
Just a couple thoughts that seemed relevant.
Your first mistake is taking "benchmarks"
at face value. Your second mistake is
believing that this benchmark applies to
the box running NT at your office cause
I'll wager yours isn't a Quad-Xeon with
4 Enet controllers.
Go look at the c't magaizine review to get
a clearer picture! Turns out there is a
corner case with 4 Enet controllers that
Linux has to improve on. This is a fairly
rare setup, most machines are going to have
1 NIC - maybe 2....where there is a different
result to the benchmark!
Next - in the EDA market that this article
is talking about (which is where I live all
day as a user) NT leaves alot to be desired
as a platform. Some of this is just "it isn't
what I'm used too" while other parts have to
do with a lack of a good scripting environment.
Oddly - the scripting can be corrected by putting
the MKS tool kit and perl on your machine...still
EDA users are usually unix jocks - and we like
having all the unix tools like awk and sed to
deal with the differences between EDA tools.
There are some EDA related benchmarks
published by ISD magazine (www.isd.com) that
might be of interest to folks if you want
to see how NT really faired!
Ever see the old Lear-Siegler
ADM terminals? Both are shaped
similarly. The only difference
is the colors - and that isn't
TOO different.
The ADM's expired in the early 80s
so any "design patents" have expired.
I kinda wonder how valid either would
be.
They DID develop a unix clone
years ago..
It's called Xenix.
About 5 years ago I joined a company that didn't
have any TCP/IP access to their network. I could
call up and use the line via seyon/minicom or
whatever and have exactly one window to use.
Then TIA came along(produced by a commercial
company.) TIA did SLIP on shell account. This
worked on Netcom's SunOS boxes but didn't
run on our sun boxes at work for some reason.
Next came Slirp - a GPL'd Slip adapter for
shell accounts - just like TIA with all the
same features.
People were begging for PPP functionality
on TIA - they kept promising it...and were
MONTHS late. The developer of Slirp began
to consider it at which point he received
a port of the Linux PPP code grafted onto
his adapter. Walla - Slip OR PPP with
source code.
Well - the folks that sold TIA wound up
dieing due to the competition from a
GPL'd piece of code that was BETTER and
had more features that TIA did.
TIA was great for awhile, but SLIRP just
did the job better, faster and with
more features.
It was the 1934!
This sure flys against RMS's article
of just two days ago! He was saying
that he didn't see it as reasonable
to GPL hardware cause it's too
expensive.
Well - what about GPLing the DESIGN!
Sheesh
All the more power to these guys..
Steve
Well - uhmm - nope!
A goodly number of the stuff you mentioned,
i.e. the mouse, GUI and perhaps even
the work station probably are appropriately
attributed to Xerox...and this wasn't on
unix.
Steve Wilson
Maybe folks should stop worrying about the
personalities involved and talk about the issues
instead?
I'd also like to remind folks that when the Open
Source trademark was applied for the community
had just fought off the theft of the "Linux"
trademark! I'd guess that when BP went after
the Open Source trademark that was part of
his thinking. Correct Bruce?
Now - do we need it?
The article that announced the denial of the
trademark said that the community was
hypocritical to apply for it since we were
constantly gripping about others that hid
their software behind the same laws! I'd
challenge this arguement by stating that
the Copyleft and it's ilk are doing
exactly the same thing!?! The law provides
a mechanism to create software that may be
protected/distributed under the control of
the creator....thus Copyleft and the myrid
other license. The trademark system is just
playing by the same game to protect the
ability to KNOW the software is what you
think it is...not some corporate marketing
trick.
So - I believe the original announcement
article was so much tripe, and that we
DO need such protection. Heck, it's playing
by the system that's in place.
Steve Wilson
Well - the Mandrake 6.0 release though
slicker looking than the production from
RH (mostly cause of nicely integrated KDE
AND GNOME) still is as buggy as RH 6.0
if not more. I had stability problems that
were horendous - like 1.5 day uptimes is
all. This partially due to the 2.2.9
kernel and partially due to Mandrake or
RH bugs(hard to separate those.)
I DO like Mandrake and find the 5.3 release
stable as a rock. I think that 6.0 of either
RH or Mandrake isn't ready for prime-time
yet..there are LOTS of bugs in these things.
Better yet - There was a reasonable number ;-)
with 5 machines running Unix. So they
replaced HOW MANY NT machines with machines
Well - I do believe under US law ( interesting
since RH is a US company and Alan codes
in England...) that even as a contractor - if
you are paid for the work -it's the employer's
unless stipulated otherwise in a prior agreement.
(All this from a non-lawyer so take it with
a large grain of salt.) I'd also
guess that English law probably has similar
constraints.
BUT since everything is GPL'd I think Alan's
take is right on. It doesn't matter one iota.
While I think you're right that YAST
is (c) SuSE - Don't forget that they've
also constributed some major code in
the form of X drivers for new cards - LOTS
of em.
Further, one of the ONLY ways that a
distribution can differentiate themselves
from others is their Admin/Easy of installation.
So -from that angle - I don't fault them
either.
Steve
But by defining it a language in an
expressive manner - this brings the full
force of the first amendment into the
picture - it makes it a constitional
arguement!
Another interesting situation is the
suit Phil Karn brought to try an export
a floppy containing source code that was
already printed in a book on cryptography
that is exportable. They turned that down,
though they approved the books international
export? Doh!
Steve
The bridge metaphor does apply! Consider
folks writting code that has life-or-death
implications. Things that come to mind are
pace-makers, nuclear reaction control systems,
etc.
It could also be argued that the "guild"
already exists - it's called ACM.
Uhm Not quite!
I'm a practicing electronic engineer in the
computer industry. I don't have a PE, and
don't need one to pursue my career.
The poster states that passing a PE examine
GUARANTEES that the design will be fail safe.
This is demonstrably false. I can show you
any number of structural designs that have
failed, yet were designed by PE's. They didn't
fail safe either, people died.
Passing the PE examine doesn't ensure that I
am competent to do design of some nature. It
shows that I am good at taking tests on
material I only know fresh out of college.
For that matter, the PE license (and it's a
license in my state...this varies from
state to state) was only established as
a "gate-keeper" mechanism to try to ensure
some minimum level of competency. It doesn't
really achieve that either. My basic
complaint with the system is that they don't
test engineers on the fields they are going
to practice in... why does a computer design
engineer need to have a structural engineers'
understanding of statics or dynamics?
The bottom line is that this system operates
mostly because it already is an established
bureaucracy. I see no reason to extend this
system to programmers as well!
To take a different tack - a professor of
mine once defined those in the "professions"
as people who have "dangerous knowledge." I
think this is a good operating definition.
Consider - would you want me to use a knife
on you to take your appendix out - I'd be
dangerous - I don't have the requisite
training or experience to accomplish the
task. So professionals are keepers of
dangerous knowledge.
To extend this definition to the programmers'
world - are there programs that require
"dangerous knowledge." Well - there ARE
programs operating in environments that
are "life critical." There could be a
case made to extend "professional licensing"
to just these areas. Writting operating
systems to handle my game playing requirements
don't fit the requirement! Writting real-time
OS's to control a nuclear reaction might!
Even then, I don't think this is needed
or desirable because I don't think you can
test for "minimum competency." I don't think
this screening mechanism works.
Well - I was paraphrasing a report seen on ABC
recently that basically said that teen-agers in
particular think with a different part of their
brains compared to adults. The BIG difference as
to why they are typically more creative than adults,or
perhaps the word un-inhibited might be more
correct.
One of the other observations was that kids(and
teenagers) don't consider the consequences
of their actions - goes with thinking your imortal
at that age I suspect. So I stand by what I say.
Now to why would I want to minimize my childs
gaining experience. EXCUSE ME...I want to control
the TYPE of experiences he has. That is my job,
right and priviledge being his parent. End of
discussion on that.
BINGO!
I want to make a few points about Katz's
article. Some of you bemoaned the fact that
the 10 year old had his computer taken away.
That was an example of GOOD parenting. You
may not agree with their reaction, but they
have chosen to be pro-active about it. They
got involved!
I have a 6 year old son myself and he doesn't
have nintendo, doesn't play doom like games,
nor watch violent movies. He is simply to
young to understand that these are fantasy
worlds. I don't want him de-sensitized to
violence, I want him to abhore it! Further,
it is MY decision, MY right, and MY
responsibility to make these decisions for
him.
Children - AND THIS INCLUDES TEENAGERS - don't
comprehend the implications of their actions.
It isn't part of their thinking process yet.
This only comes with age/maturity. That being
the case - THE PARENTS are responsible for
watching out for their well-being.
Society in general has decided that it's the
"Village's" responsibility to guarantee that
kids are safe and brought up in a nuturing
environment. BS! It's the PARENTS job....
no-one elses.
Also, all of you lament the fact that you
are being persecuted. I will instantly
grant you all the fact that schools today
are overly bureaucratic, that the administrators
are being judgemental and over-reacting. See
my last paragraph as to why they behave
this way! Parents have ceeded their
responsibilities to the schools to bring
up their kids to be good citizens. That is
societal stupidy in the extreme!
We have to get back to the point where we
take responsibilities for our actions, or
those of our children...for they are both
morally, physically, and legally un-able
to exercise adult judgement in their actions.
To the older kids who had their internet
access taken away. Well - your parents
care about you! Respect and love them for
that. Talk to them! Right now you think they
are the dumbest people on the face of the
earth and that NO-ONE could possibly know
how you feel, or understand you. Consider
that you just found out that there are lots
of kids that feel as you do, and that your
parents were kids once too. Seek out their
advice...explain why you feel like you do
to them. TALK!
Steve W.
First - sponsoring a rebuttal in the
form of another benchmark will have to
be left to the Distro guys making money...
Cause it costs money to put together such
a test system, or purchase NT for that matter!
On the other hand - putting out a decent
rebuttal in the form of accurate criticism
such as ESR has done(I REALLY like his
article) is perhaps the best way to point
that Emporer Bill isn't wearing any clothes.
The only remaining trick is to get that
rebuttal circulated amongst the press
widely. ESR has the credibility to get
quoted in such places. Looks like a
good combination, and the right path
to me.
Steve
I've got it figured out.
Gates is in denial!
He's denying that applications like Office
are complex, while browsers like Mozilla, IE5,
KFM, etc are simple?
He's denying that Linux isn't good for much,
except that more Internet servers are using
it than any other choice.
He's denying that the bizaar model can't scale
up to provide real and tested solutions, yet
MS does it well? (Then why did Wordpad give me
a BSOD the very first time I used NT just trying
to read a floppy?)
See - he's in denial!